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Economic Security

Even as women have moved up the economic ladder and outpaced men in earnings growth over the last decade, they are lagging behind in a crucial area — getting new jobs.

Since the recession ended in June 2009, men have landed 80% of the 2.6 million net jobs created, including 61% in the last year.

One reason: Male-dominated manufacturing, which experienced sharp layoffs during the recession, has rebounded in recent years, while government, where women hold the majority of jobs, has continued to be hit hard.

But there's something else at work. Men are grabbing a bigger share of jobs in areas, such as retail sales, that typically have been the province of women, federal data show.

That's not necessarily good news for women or men. So-called women's work often pays less and offers skimpier benefits and less opportunity for advancement than the jobs men previously held.

According to IWPR analysis of the June employment report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), job growth continued in June with 80,000 jobs added to nonfarm payrolls. In June women gained 32,000 jobs and men gained 48,000 jobs.

The study of more than 9000 women found those who worked more than 49 hours a week gained an average of about 1.9 per cent of their weight over a two-year period – or about 1.3 kilograms for a 69-kilogram woman. Those who worked part-time had an average weight gain of 1.5 per cent – or about 1 kilogram.

"These findings suggest that not working may have some protective effect against weight gain and may help promote weight loss," says the study, published in the International Journal of Obesity.

"This may be related to those women having more time to spend on maintaining a healthy body weight."The study, which examined women aged 45 to 50, found those who worked long hours, defined as 41 to 48 hours a week, or very long hours, more than 49 hours a week, were also far more likely to smoke, drink at unhealthy levels, sleep less and not exercise.

About 65 per cent of those who worked long hours drank at risky levels, compared with 42 per cent of those who were not in the workforce and 53 per cent who were unemployed.

The study said employed women may be more likely to gain weight because they have less time for exercise, sleeping and preparing home-cooked meals.

The lead author, Nicole Au, from Melbourne's Monash University, said the impact of long work hours was particularly evident among the women who gained the most weight.

The deep recession that began in December 2007 and cost nearly 7.5 million jobs was harder on male workers, but the recovery that officially began in June 2009 has been slower for women. After losing ground at the start of the recovery, the pace of the recovery has picked up for women. Three years into the recovery (June 2009 to June 2012), women have gained back 24 percent of the jobs they lost during the recession; men have gained back 39 percent. However, heavy public sector job losses continue to hinder the recovery for both women and men, but especially for women: for every 10 private sector jobs women gained in the first three years of the recovery, they lost more than 4 public sector jobs.

But what's $10,000 to you if you're a female Republican congressional staffer? It's about how much less you'd make than the men in your office, according to salary data from LegiStorm.

As Catherine Hollander notes as part of this week's National Journal magazine cover story, these numbers aren't a perfect science. Additionally, the salary divergence can be largely explained by thegender disparity in high-level congressional jobs--especially among Republicans. Women working in Congress tend to have lower-ranking jobs and thus lower salaries. But the salary contrasts are striking when matched to congressional salary data on the whole.

An estimated 18.7 million U.S. women ages 19 to 64 were uninsured in 2010, up from 12.8 million in 2000. An additional 16.7 million women had health insurance but had such high out-of-pocket costs relative to their income that they were effectively underinsured in 2010. This issue brief examines the implications of poor coverage for women in the United States by comparing their experiences to those of women in 10 other industrialized nations, all of which have universal health insurance systems. The analysis finds that women in the United States—both with and without health insurance— are more likely to go without needed health care because of cost and have greater difficulty paying their medical bills than women in the 10 other countries. In 2014, the Affordable Care Act will substantially reduce health care cost exposure for all U.S. women by significantly expanding and improving health insurance coverage.

By rewriting the rules that govern which strings the federal government can attach to its spending on the state level, Chief Justice John Roberts may have inadvertently prevented a future Tea Party-dominated Congress from executing one of its top priorities, defunding Planned Parenthood.At the same time, it raises the question of whether the federal government can withhold Medicaid money if a state decides on its own to defund Planned Parenthood.

By rewriting the rules that govern which strings the federal government can attach to its spending on the state level, Chief Justice John Roberts may have inadvertently prevented a future Tea Party-dominated Congress from executing one of its top priorities, defunding Planned Parenthood.

At the same time, it raises the question of whether the federal government can withhold Medicaid money if a state decides on its own to defund Planned Parenthood. Before Roberts' ruling, no legal scholar would have questioned whether the federal government had the authority to spend its own money or tie any strings it deemed appropriate to it. But after the ruling, it's an open question that will likely be decided in court, legal experts told The Huffington Post.

"I perceive NFIB v. Sebelius as throwing the courthouse doors open to coercion claims," said Nicole Huberfeld, a University of Kentucky law professor. "Because the holding is so dependent on the somewhat unusual facts of Medicaid, and because the court set forth no theory of coercion, I think we will see a lot of challenges in an effort to discover the contours of the coercion doctrine."

The issue raised by Roberts' opinion is whether the federal government can coerce a state into using its federal grant money in a particular way by threatening to withhold that money. For instance, if Congress voted to defund Planned Parenthood through the Title X federal family planning program, but New York wanted to continue sending its federal Title X dollars to Planned Parenthood clinics in the state, could the government withhold all Title X money from New York?

A significant number of countries continue to struggle with a wide gender gap in the workplace -- a fourth to be exact, according to data recently released by Gallup. That gender gap is technically the difference between the number of men and women in full-time or voluntary part-time work.

The problem is not universal. For every Ecuador or Saudi Arabia, two countries with enormous gender gaps, there is a Ireland or United Kingdom, both of which were found to posses a gender gap that actually favors women.

That's not to say gender gaps only exist in developing countries. Italy, a member of the European Union, posted a workplace gender gap of 13 percent, the survey found.

The pollsters last year questioned 187,119 people across 144 countries.

Analysis by the National Women’s Law Center of jobs data for June 2012 shows that women gained more private sector jobs than men did: 49,000 v. 35,000. But women lost 17,000 public sector jobs in June, while men gained 13,000 public sector jobs.

Analysis by the National Women’s Law Center of jobs data for June 2012 shows that last month women gained more private sector jobs than men did: 49,000 v. 35,000. But women lost 17,000 public sector jobs in June, while men gained 13,000 public sector jobs. Since the start of the recovery three years ago, women have gained 908,000 net private sector jobs—and lost 396,000 net public sector jobs. Men have gained 2,304,000 net private sector jobs—and lost 231,000 net public sector jobs. In the last three years, women have a net gain of 512,000 jobs; men have a net gain of 2,073,000 jobs.

“The June jobs data reflect a disturbing trend we’ve seen during the three years of the recovery: cuts in public sector jobs are undermining the recovery overall—but especially for women,” said Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center. “For every ten private sector jobs women have gained since the recovery began in June 2009, they’ve lost more than four public sector jobs. Our communities are losing teachers, nurses, police and firefighters but some policy makers still don’t get it. They’re pushing for deeper budget cuts that will mean more lost jobs, more cuts in education, health care, public safety, and other vital services.”